Trump's corona diagnosis: his own script

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"Comey Rule" actor Brendan Gleeson: He's always somewhere else

Photo: Ben Mark Holzberg / CBS / Sky

Donald Trump is the first quantum president - while he is still pinned to a personal, political or ethical mistake according to all the rules of social discourse, he has already committed the next and the next but one much worse mistake elsewhere.

Just now everyone is talking about his bulldozing appearance in the TV duel with challenger Joe Biden, and the mask refuser is infected with Corona.

Presumably before the debate - and the competitors too?

Or maybe not at all, who knows?

What a coup.

If "Trump - The White House Years" were a series on Netflix, a talented pool of authors could not have come up with a more effective plot twist so shortly before the election.

Because now there is no longer any talk about the TV duel (as before, no longer about his taxes and previously not about his deliberate downplaying of the virus and so on

).

Can Trump Benefit From His Infection?

Morally discussed is now the question of whether malice is allowed or not in view of the expected.

Legally, whether a serious illness of the president could cause constitutional problems, and politically, whether the election must now be postponed by Congress.

Machiavellist would be to observe to what extent even this thing could benefit him in the end, if it went smoothly - because he is now as dirty as the "political center", whose electorate was believed to have been lost.

Again it's all about himself, again he's writing his own script.

And again the whole world wriggles at strings that a narcissist pulls.

Presumably, a theory is already being spun in the catacombs of insanity, according to which Trump was the victim of an attack by a microscopic Chinese agent - even if he himself was not infected with the "China virus", as he long called the threat, but, as evidenced by his tweet, officially and seriously with "Covid-19".

In his book "Trump! POPulism as Politics", the cultural scientist Georg Seeßlen already explained in 2017 why such a figure cannot be dealt with with the usual cutlery.

Trump is a product of pop culture, different rules apply here than in conventional discourse.

It's about strong feelings, not reason.

The action and attitude of the protagonist change with every tweet.

The establishment's duping is permanent.

In the past, the political was still too satirical, dramaturgical or fictional.

With the entry of a pop figure - who, like all populists

, wants to

- into politics, this balancing mechanism is undone and the new reality can no longer catch up.

The narrative succumbs to the fascination of evil

This can currently be seen in the political two-part "The Comey Rule" on Netflix.

Even before his first term in office is over, the FBI Director James Comey will be fired by Donald Trump.

Actor Jeff Daniels describes the civil servant as a righteous servant of the state.

Only when, at the end of the first part, Brendan Gleeson takes the stage as Trump, does color come into play - because the narrative unconsciously succumbs to the fascination of evil.

Seldom has a president been portrayed so ruthlessly as a mixture of mafia boss, impostor and gambler.

Nevertheless, Gleeson slips away his Trump.

His character is increasingly merging with the flickering images of criminals from gangster films and the countless Trump memes from social media - all the pop cultural archetypes from which Trump consciously composed himself.

She merges with Trump himself.

It is true that this performance and the staging contain all the contempt that the liberal bourgeoisie, to whom "The Comey Rule" applies, feels for Trump.

But because he himself is a creature of performance and staging, this performance can do no more to him than the demand that he should disclose his tax return.

He's always somewhere else.

The question is not whether the infection

the 74-year-old

- that would be thinking on his terms, according to his standards.

It

him, that's bad enough.

But even this collapse of reality and factuality can no longer harm such a figure.

Should he suffer from the disease, he or his followers will pull out the usual sacrifice card.

If he defeats them, the old narrative of the lonely superhero can be continued.

Even in this case, pop culture offers enough role models to do justice to every eventuality.

While we think about this, he's already elsewhere.

Maybe someday on the mend.

Collaboration: Oliver Kaever

Icon: The mirror